Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouses welcomes public to open house

Alex LaCasse @Nomad_Reports

Sunday

May 28, 2017 at 6:47 PMMay 28, 2017 at 6:47 PM

NEW CASTLE – Though the weather was a little brisk for Memorial Day weekend, the lack of sun was not going to stop hundreds of people from near and far from enjoying Friends of Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouses’ first open house of the year.

Crowds patiently waited in the elements just for a chance to step inside history and see the structure that served to protect mariners dating back to the 1770s, though the lighthouse was rebuilt and relocated several times before being constructed in its current location in the 1870s. Normally, the lighthouse is not accessible to the public because it is located on the property of the Coast Guard Station but from Memorial Day weekend through Columbus Day weekend, Friends of Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouses holds open houses to raise money to fund the structure’s maintenance.

“For any of our open houses, we think 200 is a lot of people. Today we had 200 people just in the first half of the day,” said Friends of Portsmouth Lighthouses operations manager Cindy Johnson. “The open houses are a fundraiser for us. We have a contract with the Coast Guard to care for Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse. The government takes care of the light but all of the care and preservation of the structure falls on us.”

Johnson said the lighthouse will require a new coat of paint this year at a cost of about $28,000. According to Friends of Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouses Founder Jeremy D’Entremont, lighthouses are a window into the past and their history needs to be preserved.

“The history here is just tremendous, both military and maritime with the forts on both sides of the harbor, the three lighthouses in the area and this is the site of the first lighthouse north of Boston,” said D’Entremont. “Lighthouses capture peoples’ imaginations, wherever you go people love lighthouses. Aside from their history, they stand for a lot of positive qualities; they’re one of the most used symbols in our culture. The lighthouse standing for hope, strength, guidance and faith, they were built for nothing but good reasons to protect life and property.”

D’Entremont said the American Lighthouse Foundation, based in Rockland, Maine, entered a contract with the Coast Guard to maintain the facility in 2000 and in 2001 Friends of Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouses was formed as a chapter of the ALF. The group now also owns Whaleback Lighthouse, just off Wood Island in Kittery Island in Kittery, Maine, in addition to the Portsmouth Harbor lighthouse.

“I fell in love with the place and saw the need to start an organization to care for this lighthouse,” said D’Entremont. “The same thing is happening everywhere around the country with lighthouses, the Coast Guard is still maintaining the lights themselves for navigation but the Coast Guard doesn’t have the budget to maintain the buildings.”

Johnson said upon purchasing Whaleback Lighthouse from the government in 2009, the group is hoping to eventually expand tours out to Whaleback but she said restoration is slow going because it is hard to safely land a boat on the tiny island and tours could not start until a dock is built, which would cost in excess of $300,000.

“There is no safe place to land a boat out there, so the plan is through grant money on the state and federal level we are hoping to be able to get enough money to build a docking system so we can really get to work,” said Johnson. “These are both historic structures that we want people to be able to see and enjoy for generations, so we just really believe in the preservation of the history of the structure; all the stories of the families who kept the light that saved all these mariners.”

The Morales family of Salem, Massachusetts, was no exception in feeling the history wash over them when they stepped onto the small footbridge connecting the Coast Guard Station to the lighthouse.

“There’s just something about being at a lighthouse, you feel connected to the ocean,” said Juan Morales. “You imagine yourself as a sailor coming into the harbor and here is the light guiding you.”

Morales’ wife, Maribel, a fifth-grade teacher, said she wished the walls of the lighthouse and Fort Constitution could talk.

“We admire lighthouses from afar, but there’s so much history in these buildings,” said Maribel Morales. “But we don’t know it, so it’s great to come here and feel that connection. Just imagine what the people who lived and work here could tell you."

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